Voices from the Easter Rising : Firsthand Accounts of Ireland's 1916 Rebellion

This work records a week in Dublin during April 1916 when in a forlorn hope 2,000 Irish Volunteers rose up in armed rebellion against the British Empire in a bid to establish an independent Irish state. The Rising is recalled in the words of those who took part. It traces the establishment of the various organizations that eventually came together that Easter week. The work then leads on to a day-to-day narrative of the men and women who took part. There are details of the highs and lows; of the triumphs and the little unexpected things that are sometimes lost in the noise of battle. In parts the narrative is intensely personal when participants record the deaths of those close to them. The work does not shy away from the atrocities and murders that took place on both sides; recorded in the Coroner`s reports. Then the work gives a personal account of the trial and, perhaps unnecessary, execution of the leaders, and the imprisonment of the surviving Volunteers.